Kallianpur, March 23: Dr Gerald Pinto was felicitated by the Student welfare Council of  Muilagres College, Kallianpur for winning the  several awards such as Divo Literary Award 2007, Karnataka Konkani Honarary Award 2007, Konkan Star Award by Konkanifriends, UK and Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy 2007 award for his Novel Thisri Thakli.

Principal Fr Fed Mascarenhas presided. Dr Neri Carnelio presided over the function. Office bearers of Student Council were present along with the entire student community.

Mumbai, Mar 25: Easter was celebrated with religious fervour by Kundapur Catholic Association, located at Parsiwada, Chakala, Andheri (East) on Sunday March 23 morning.

All members gathered in the Association hall on Sunday morning, to offer special Easter prayers and greeted each other.  Archie Fernandes, manager of the Association inaugurated to the Easter celebrations by cutting the cake.

Rons Bantwal, convener of Federation of Maharastra Canara Catholic Association, Michael Grass, Nixon Gonsalves, Raymond Nazareth and other office-bearers of Association were present at the occasion. 

Kundapur, Mar 26: Under the auspices of Nusrath-Ul-Maskeen association, Kundapur taluk committee Dr Umashanker, chief medical officer of government hospital here distributed fruits and milk to the inpatients of the hospital to mark the birthday of Prophet Mohammed.

Convener of the central committee Altaf Khuraishi informed the gathering the committee plans to continue the tradition of celebrating the birthday of their most esteemed and reverend prophet in future also with some other programmes of the like.

Among those present were members H Asainar, G Sardar, G Usman, H Yusuf and Monurdyal Hussein. Abu Sheikh comepered the programme.

The only means of earning their daily bread is to dive deep into the river bottom and retrieve manually cart-loads of shells of molasses. Come winter or summer, rain or storm, no matter what the season, it is their lot to get up early in the morning and finish mining by 11 o’clock.  

The government and the local representatives have been indifferent and insolent towards the pitiable and agonizing state of the community. These shell workers are a new brood of bonded laborers in the iron grip of their masters.  

Their daily earnings do not exceed beyond Rs 200. Sometimes in a day, in a six-hour labour, a miner does not get even a basketful of shells and his job would be akin to that of  ‘Yajna in water’ getting nothing in return for the hard and risky venture. His labour is in fact akin to an ‘Aranya Rodana’.  

In all there are about 10,000 miners who are in the unorganized sector, sans leaders. They hail from the neighboring villages like Kharvikeri, Kodi, Gangolly, Uppinkudru, Maddugudde, Trasi, Alooru, Guddammadi and Hemmadi. 

Some decades back shell mining in the river was unheard of in the district. But now with the winds of globalization blowing fast, shell mining too has come to this region.  

Thanks to Kateel Devidasa Pai, an octogenarian is the originator of the idea of shell mining in these parts, which has resulted in its establishment in the region. 

Kundapur Mar 18: The members of the Vishwakarma community of the taluk had a get-together recently under the presidentship of S V Achar, Mangalore. Several problems relating to the community came up for discussion. Also on the occasion several scholarships were distributed to deserving students of the community.
 
The president of taluk unit G Seetharam Acharya, Shyamaraya Acharya, the vice-president Vishwakarma Okkoota Yogeesha Acharya were also present on the podium as chief guests. The secretary of the Okkuota K Muralidhar presented the annual report.

Treasurer T G Acharya tabled the audited accounts of the community and gave Okkoota's dispassionate opinion about the problems and the priorities confronting the community. This was done only after mutual discussions and interactions between the office-bearers of the different units of the Okkoota.

Among those felicitated were Asha Noojady, the kabaddi athlete who became Karkala's 6th rank holder in the international science examination and Prasad Surathkal who reached upto the state-level in table tennis competition.
 
Some twenty students including girls were granted scholarships in recognition of their excellent performance in examination. Bandimatt Shivarama Acharya sang a prayer hymn. 
 
B V Acharya delivered the introductory remarks. Dinesh Padubidri welcomed the gathering while Mahabaleshwara Acharya proposed the vote of thanks.  Dinesh Acharya Chaempi compered the programmes.